A Place of His Own Read Online Free

didn’t need much space.
    After she put on her nightgown, she knelt beside her bed and said her evening prayers. Once she finished, she slipped between the cool sheets and pulled the green-and-white basket-patterned quilt over her body. Despite the fatigue from putting in a long day of work, helping her mamm with the children and chores, she still couldn’t get Josiah out of her mind.
    Obviously he had changed physically, but she sensed something else different about him, something intangible and mysterious. She smiled in the darkness. Tomorrow she would find out exactly what that was. She rolled on her side and hugged the extra pillow she couldn’t sleep without, Josiah Bontrager still filling her mind.
    â€œJosiah Bontrager’s back,” Amanda announced as she bounced into the kitchen the next morning.
    Her mamm paused as she pulled nine white plates out of the cabinet, a surprised expression on her face. “He is?”
    â€œ Ya .” Amanda took the plates from her mamm and started setting the table. “Last night while I was outside, I heard a sound coming from the Bontragers’ barn. When I went inside, I saw a horse in one of the stalls.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œ Ya . Then Josiah came up behind me. Practically scared me to death at first, but I was so happy to see him I didn’t care.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t be nosing around someone else’s property, Amanda. Especially by yourself.” Mamm gave her a somber look as she cracked an egg into a skillet on top of the propane stove.
    Amanda smirked. “He said the same thing.”
    Rachel yawned as she entered the room with Hannah. “Who’s ‘he’?”
    â€œJosiah.” At that point the kitchen filled with children, some wide awake and full of energy, others still dragging. Amanda scooped up Jacob in her arms before Thomas accidentally trampled him.
    â€œWho’s Josiah?” Hannah asked.
    â€œThe young man who used to live next door.”
    â€œYou mean someone actually lived there?” Andrew said. “In that dump?”
    â€œThomas, come butter the toast,” Mamm said, scooping the fried eggs onto a platter. “Andrew, that’s not nice. Josiah and his daed moved away nine years ago.”
    â€œTen,” Amanda corrected, helping her younger siblings get settled at the table. “Josiah moved away ten years ago, Mamm .”
    Just as she went to pick up the platter of cooked eggs, her father walked into the room, pulling his black suspenders over his shoulders. “Did I hear you mention Josiah?”
    Amanda grinned. “Ya, Daed . He’s back. Came in sometime yesterday.”
    Daed looked at her. “How do you know that?”
    â€œI saw him last night. For just a few minutes.”
    â€œWas he alone?”
    â€œDavid,” Mamm said in a low voice.
    Amanda didn’t miss the look that passed between her parents, but she thought she should answer her father’s question. “I think so. He didn’t say anything about his daed .”
    Daed nodded and sat down at the table.
    When everyone finished eating and her father left for work, Amanda picked up Jacob out of his high chair. “I invited Josiah over, Mamm. I thought you would like to see him again.”
    â€œHannah, it’s your turn to clear the table.” Mamm looked up at Amanda as Hannah began to remove the dirty dishes. “Of course I want to see him. So would Daed . He was like a sohn to us, and a brother to you.”
    Amanda’s face reddened. What would her mother say if she knew that last night her thoughts about Josiah Bontrager had been anything but sisterly?
    â€œWhen is he coming over?” Mamm asked, slowly rising from the chair. She laid her hand over her swollen belly.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    Jacob squirmed in Amanda’s grasp, and she set him down, watching him as he toddled over to the living room to the large toy box in the